A delegation from the Monitoring, Evaluation and Technical Support Services (METSS) on Thursday met officials of The Multimedia Group to discuss various ways the two institutions could collaborate to influence policy decisions on various sectors of the Ghanaian economy, particularly on agriculture.

The METSS delegation was led by the Director of Operations, Mr. Saaka Adams.

Other members of the METSS team included Dode Seidu, a Trade Africa Private Sector Advisor and Evans Boah-Mensah, the Communications Specialist.

Mr. Kwasi Twum, Founder and CEO of The Multimedia Group, on the other hand was joined by Mr. Santokh Singh, Managing Director-Multi TV, Ms. Emma Morrison, Group Head, Business Programming (Radio, TV & Interactive Media), Elvis Kwashie, Managing News Editor and Emily Nyarko.

The two institutions talked of the need to continuously work together to provide the public with information that is backed by verifiable data.

Mr. Singh, who led the discussions from the Multimedia team affirmed the commitment of the Multimedia Group to use its position as a leader in the electronic news industry to play its watchdog role of monitoring the conduct of public office holders.

He said the news outfit will continue to employ considered tack to improve transparency in the governance system of the country and to also influence development processes.

Mr. Saaka Adams on the other hand expressed appreciation to the media for its critical role in safeguarding transparency and democratic processes and encouraged the news industry to seek the help of independent data gatherers in disseminating accurate information to the public. 

He indicated the willingness of METSS to utilize its pool of data resources on the economy to support, inform and shape policy advocacy and decision making.

METSS is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project established through a Participating Agency Services Agreement (PASA) between USAID|Ghana and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to coordinate implementation of activities in support of its program implementation in Ghana.

The METSS PASA provides technical support for USAID’s mandate to support “Sustainable and Broadly Shared Economic Growth” in Ghana. Through a partnership between USDA, Kansas State University (KSU) and the University of Cape Coast, METSS provides support to the Economic Growth office of USAID in Ghana and its implementing partners under four main programmatic components: Monitoring and Evaluation, Research and Special Studies, Knowledge Management, Leaning and Communications as well as Capacity Building and Outreach.

The project also has the mandate to support the monitoring activities of various US Presidential initiatives such as the Partnership for Growth, Power Africa, and Trade Africa expansion program in Ghana.

Through the activities of its components, USAID|METSS has generated a lot of data on key sectors of the Ghanaian economy particularly on agriculture, energy and trade.